Lemle & Wolff recently completed the acquisition and revitalization of a large distressed portfolio in the South Bronx. It was one of the most challenging projects in the firm’s 75-year history. Goldstein Hall helped us devise creative solutions for this effort. For five years, they were an integral part of our successful redevelopment team.

-- Michael SturmerLemle & Wolff

Goldstein Hall is general counsel for JOE (Joint Ownership Entity) NYC, an award-winning alliance of more than a dozen community-based nonprofit groups who are collaborating in an unprecedented effort to maintain and preserve New York’s affordable housing stock.

JOE NYC will jointly own and oversee portfolios of its members, ensuring the affordability of 3,000 – 3,500 apartments for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

For more than two years, Goldstein Hall worked to build JOE NYC from the ground up, meeting regularly with representatives of the community development organizations and the public and private supporters of the new entity. Goldstein Hall:

developed term sheets to indicate its members’ roles and responsibilities

created the entity’s ownership structure for its affordable housing portfolios.

Goldstein Hall’s role in JOE NYC has been crucial to the entity’s early success. While the entity is similar in concept to a real estate investment trust (REIT), Goldstein Hall helped insure its mission-driven nature. As a result, JOE NYC helps the participating CDCs boost their asset and property management capacity, improve their own cash flow and balance sheets, and increase their ability to secure financing for their development projects.

JOE NYC closed its first deal in early 2017: the purchase of 43 buildings (248 apartments) in Central Brooklyn. The deal also involved the nonprofit St. Nick’s Alliance, which will continue managing the apartments that were previously owned by a for-profit developer as part of a tax-credit arrangement – the first-ever such deal in New York City. .

JOE NYC won Innovation of the Year at the Local Initiative Support Corporation’s 2017 Big Apple Innovation Awards.